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Dance

I have fond memories of disco bowl nights from high school—those air-conditioned evenings when all the cool kids would sneak beers in the parking lot and I'd just bowl. Sure, the music was awful, because disco music is awful, and I never cracked 120. Also the fog machine left me coughing fits and a weird desire to move to San Francisco. But those nights were Good Times.

It seems Mission Bowling Club has gotten hip to the disco bowl phenomenon, only updated it with significantly more tolerable music. Plus, Mission Bowling has alleviated their notorious steep prices with happy hour specials and other such discounts. From Mission Bowling:

SOUL & BOWL is a curated soul music series that we host every 1st and 3rd Monday of the month, filled with soulful jams and fantastic food, drink, and bowling specials (Free shoes rentals!).

Starting this Monday, September 2, we'll have additional specialty cocktails for the night curated by Daniel Hyatt (formerly of Roka Akor). He's crafting some great drinks like the Sam and Dave and the Juke Joint Punch. We're so excited to try them!

I'm yet to figure out if Betabrand is a clothing store or a party pad that hasn't gotten around to hanging three greek letters above their doors. Regardless, the hands down highlight of this weekend's Sunday Streets was watching a robot party on a runway for a discount on socks.

It looks like the storied and troubled venue space at 2565 Mission Street is about to start a new chapter. What was 12 Galaxies (a most noble attempt at becoming a thing that, sadly, never managed to pack a room) and later The Blue Macaw is now a French/Cajun/Creole-inspired restaurant/bar/nightclub with a name I'll assuredly never learn to pronounce correctly. Oy.

Does this mean the club is returning to its weird roots? Who knows. But as the former 12 Galaxies event promoter who tipped us off to the change put it, “Maybe it won't be as high-brow as Foreign Cinema, especially with the comedy and burlesque stuff, so maybe there's hope.”

So how excited am I about a song called Sex Bruise that deals mostly with the passion of the Hadron Particle Collider? How much can a female co-fronted, sex and science-themed three-piece speak to me? Who is Date Nite and what are they doing?

None of these questions need to be answered. Just feel the music. Date Nite. Sex Bruise. Shhh.

While Date Nite has provided us all with this wonderful new sketch, an in-depth behind the scenes look at what musical collaboration is all about, you can only hear Date Nite's actual music in this blarg post (see below) or on their myspace. For updates on releases and concerts, lurk on them on the facebooks.

If you are not immediately familiar with DJ Primo (and we're sure you are), he's the man behind seemingly half of San Francisco's best DJ nights. And this mini-doc pretty much tells you why that's so: total obsession with music, with no boring-ass adult day job to distract him, and a whole lot of goofy solo apartment dancing. It's definitely worth a watch, if you're into this sort of thing, or looking for a brief escape from the post-holiday work grind. Plus, it feels like watching an indie episode of Hoarders.

Anyway, if you aren't familiar with Primo and are looking to party on Friday, you can get yourself acquainted at Oldies Night at The Knockout.

Debatable! Uptown Almanac's office at 19th & Valencia have been receiving mailers from District 5 candidate London Breed every single day for the last two weeks. Listen, we care about the kids of D5 as much as any other District 9 resident, but the quantity and frequency of these mailings is a litte excessive.

Some possible explanations:

London Breed doesn't know where District 5 is.

London Breed has lots of excess campaign funds with which to spread her message about the entire city.

I was walking down Valencia Street Friday afternoon when I happened to find the owners of the forthcoming Preservation Hall West, which is bringing New Orleans jazz and grub to the giant green building across from Mission Bicycle and Paxton Gate, about to take a tour of the new venue. So I rudely invited myself inside and got the scoop on what's the status of the place, which is supposedly opening Oct. 4th and hosting Elvis Costello on the 6th.

First of all, the place is massive. It's like a miniature chaterdral in there. I guess they call those churches? Anyway, it's big, and the ceilings are nice and tall to keep the heat from dancing and what not in check.

Second, it's going to take some sort of mircle to get this place open in two weeks, and the people talking to me about the place regrettingly acknowledged that as well. The bar and walls are still in the plywood/drywall phase, the floor is all torn up… hell, the stage isn't even built yet. But whatever—whenever they do get it open, it stands to be one of the city's finer venues, and it's right in our backyard.

UPDATE:The Bay Bridged was also in the building and has additional shots and a longer interview with the parties involved:

The Mission getting a top flight concert venue is inarguably an amazing addition to an already red hot neighborhood. What makes the whole venture even easier to root for is Knowles’ child-like excitement surrounding the venue’s accessibility not only for the fans, but also the musicians. “I see this as a place where musicians can come play, walk outside and immediately have all this,” he says pointing up and down Valencia. “I want them to experience the Mission. Right now, if they play one night in San Francisco, they might not have time to come down here and explore.” Knowles also likes the idea of keeping musicians here for an extended period of time. “We want to have residencies here. Musicians can play multiple nights, they can stay in the Mission…we want them to be proud of this place.” Further exemplifying this stance, as he treated those in attendance to a champagne toast, Knowles raised his glass and, doing that same pause he did in the main room, said “Thanks for coming, and now we’ll toast to the San Francisco music scene.”